Fireflies like to live in humid, watery, and weedy places, especially along the banks of streams and rivers. There was an old saying in my country called "Corrugated grass grows fireflies," which reflects this habit. The adults do not feed, but only suck a little dew. The female emerges more than a week later than the male, and then she flashes fluorescent lights in search of a mate. When the male sees the flash of light, he flies over to mate.
After mating, the female usually lays her eggs on shaded shrubs, weeds or rocks close to the water. A female insect can lay thousands of eggs in her lifetime, but the strange thing is that she lays these eggs in 5-6 different places. This may be to preserve her offspring more effectively. The eggs are slightly round, about 0.5 mm in diameter, and there are usually 300-400 eggs in one piece. The newly laid egg shell is soft and takes about 1 week to harden. After about 2 weeks, the development of the larvae can be seen from the outside of the egg shell. The eggs begin to hatch after 3 weeks. The average egg stage is about 1 month. The color of the eggs changes from creamy yellow to white, then to milky white, and then turns to dark black before hatching.
The hatching of the larvae usually takes place at midnight. It bites the eggs with its upper jaw and then breaks them out. The hatching process takes about half an hour. The newly hatched larvae are about 1.5-2 mm. After hatching and emerging from the shell, the larvae immediately burrow into the bottom of the water. At the bottom of the water, they dive under rocks or sand during the day and come out to feed at night, mainly feeding on molluscs with shells in the water, especially snails.
Larvae are generally 6-7 years old, and mature larvae can reach more than 20 mm in length. The larval stage is long, usually about one year, and some even exceed two years. The mature larvae will crawl ashore from the bottom of the water when they pupate, usually on rainy days. When a suitable place is selected, a cocoon chamber is made with sand, in which it pupates. The pupa period lasts for 10-15 days. After the adult emerges, it does not move at first and stays in the cocoon chamber for 2-3 days. Some species stay longer. During this period, the color of the body increases, the body becomes hard, and finally it comes out of the cocoon and comes to the weeds or bushes by the water.
Adult beetles like to be active on sunny, high temperature, windless nights, and hide in dark and shaded places to rest during the day. There are three peaks in night activities, respectively around 21:00, 24:00 and 3:00 in the morning. After the adults mate and lay eggs, they complete their historical mission and end their lives peacefully.
animal tags： Fireflies Coleoptera Lucidae
you may also like
The brown mantis does not represent a specific species, because the insect group of mantises has a very wide range of species and populations. There are many different species and subspecies under the family Mantidae. They may have certain similarities in appearance, but there are still large...
Another type of protective coloration is to use patterns to attract the attention of predators, thereby avoiding damage to fatal parts. Eyespots, the pattern found on the wings of most butterflies, are perhaps the best example of this coloration. Eyespots are most common in the families Oculi...
Recent research shows that there may be 10 million species of insects in the world, accounting for about half of all biological species on the earth. However, there are currently only 1 million named insect species, accounting for 2/3-3/4 of the known species in the animal kingdom. It can be...
Some individual butterflies will have deformities, which is inevitable. We humans are also prone to deformities, as the saying goes. This picture is a comparison between the deformity of Fei butterfly and the normal individual....
Aphids are also called grub bugs, morning bugs, honey bugs, ant bugs, etc. Although their bodies are small, they can cause great harm to plants. Among them, except for the gall aphid, which is a beneficial insect, the rest can be said to be devastating pests. There are almost no roots, stems,...
The body of the armor is generally elongated, and there are often spikes or knobs on the back and elytra of the body, making it look like a warrior wearing iron armor, so it is called the armor. The iron armor mentioned here is in a narrow sense, referring to the iron armor subfamily of the i...
Once an insect of the family Knockidae is caught, it will kowtow on your hand, hence its vivid name - Kowtow bug. Children often catch knocking beetles (adults) in the wild and play with them. They use their thumbs and index fingers to gently pinch its hind abdomen and elytra ends, and turn i...
Classification is the most basic method to understand objective things, so biological classification is the basic method to understand living things. Biological classification uses classification hierarchies (classification systems) to organize each living thing. In other words,...
Email: jsset#163.com (change # to @) Please indicate your purpose of visit! Guangdong ICP No. 2022053326 XML| map| Chinese
